Congrats on your transformation! You should feel very proud of yourself to have come so far and to have gotten to the point where you can listen to your stomach. Surprisingly, that simple communication with our body is something that so many of us have trained ourselves to not pay any attention to. After suffering with an eating disorder for about 15 years, I got to the point where I didn’t even know what it felt like to be hungry anymore! I had to really work to “hear” that signal. And you’re right, counting calories can be an obsession that can take over your life and your thoughts, so I think it’s awesome that you have cut back from that and are just listening to your wants and needs and not freaking out over a piece of cake.
When you want something sweet, all those fat-free, sugar-free options seem like a smart choice for weight loss. But researchers at Cornell University found that overweight people who choose low-fat versions of snack foods rather than the regular kinds consume, on average, twice as many calories. "The terms 'fat-free' or 'sugar-free' can create a green light effect, triggering people to eat more," says dietitian Cynthia Sass, RD. But many fat-free foods have about the same number of calories (or more) as their full-fat counterparts.
You’re still relying on counting calories instead of letting true hunger guide you. What does true hunger feel like to you? Work on increasing or decreasing your fat to focus on the sensations of true hunger. Try to consume fat at different times of the day so that your hunger is controlled. Strengthening your self-awareness surrounding hunger can reduce the frequency of eating when you are not hungry.
It was (and still is) important for me to have a game plan for the day. Usually I prepared the night before for all my meals for the next day. I would pack my lunch, think about my breakfast, or talk to Alan about what we would make for dinner the next day. If I was going out for a meal, I would think about healthy choices I could make. If I was going to have to work late, I would pack a healthy snack to hold me over. I found that it was really helpful for me to set myself up for success ahead of time.
Jennifer, I am a little different than you. I have always been a big girl and right now, I am near 200 pounds. I am about 5’3 and I’ve always had trouble losing weight. I’m actually very athletic. I love to play sports and I’m good at them, but I hate running. I also splurge a lot. it’s a bad habit of mine to snack when I’m bored. I’m a recent college student and eating healthy is difficult, not to mention exercise. since I live on the fourth floor, I try to take the stairs only. I’m pretty good about that. I have a slow metabolism and I have no sense of calorie counting. I’m desperate for help, but I need to concentrate on my studies. what advice can you give me?
I believe that this cheat day is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, the science behind it suggests that if you go for too long on a limited-calorie diet (which this isn’t, however I noticed that it took me much, much less food to fill me up when I ate well, so you tend to naturally eat less on this diet) that your metabolism will shift to a lower gear in order to compromise for the lower intake of calories. By cheating one day and spiking the number of calories you consume, it will keep your metabolism from doing this – and allow you to maintain your high metabolic rate throughout the week.
Don’t let the kids from school bug you, don’t give them that powers, they are just ignorant and yes, also stupid. Try not to get depressed either, talk to your parents or even someone who you can trust so that they can also help you deal with this. Some kid are just really mean, but you will get over it, remember that because you are soooooo totally worth it! 🙂
With potatoes, leave the skin on (with baked or mashed potatoes) or if you peel them, make snacks of them. For example, drizzle olive oil, rosemary, salt, and garlic on the peels and bake at 400 F (205 C) for fifteen minutes for baked Parmesan garlic peels. Keeping the skin on potatoes when cooking them helps keep more vitamins/minerals in the flesh (just don't eat any parts of skin that are green).
I laid on the floor, crying, and said “so this is being an adult.” Then I belly laughed. ⠀ My feelings were all over the place, stress was present but it wasn’t unbearable, I had a lot of work, but not too much that I was drowning, Cooper was gone, but I knew he was okay and happy with his dad—I was seemingly okay, but I didn’t feel okay. ⠀ So I did what I do when I feel off, I reach into my toolbox and grab the tool that makes the most sense in that moment. First, it was calling a friend. She allowed me to cry. Knowing that I didn’t want advice, I just needed someone to receive my vulnerability without judgement. ⠀ I laid on the floor because I liked the way the pressure of my body felt on the ground. I cried, well, I sobbed. I was in pain and my body hurt. She listened, and then said something that made me laugh. Within moments I was in the depths of pain, then belly laughing. “So this is being an adult”, I said. But looking back now, it has nothing to do with being an adult, but being a human. Allowing ourselves to feel the full range of human emotions without fucking judging them. ⠀ Self care can feel like a bunch of bullshit and fantasy land ideas. So how can you filter the BS and get through your hard as hell moments? 👉🏽Don’t focus on being 100% better. Try just 1%. Because 1% is a whole hell of a lot better than nothing. By the way, this crying ordeal was last night—we all have bad days and moments and adulting is hard AF sometimes. As I was about to hang up the phone, I said “I feel 3% better”. Not 1, or 2, I felt a confident 3% better. That, was progress. ⠀ Maybe you need to draw your feelings, cry them out, dance them out, call a friend and just speak, yell, masterbate, breathe, watch a show, mediate—whatever you need to do, remind yourself that 1️⃣ you’re so human. You’re imperfect and it’s okay to have off days. 2️⃣ self care is all about trial and error. Adjust and pivot with each present moment. 3️⃣ 1% better IS better. Reframe what progress looks like to you 💓 ⠀
Jennifer Drummond is health food blogger for Peanut Butter & Peppers where she shares healthy, and sometimes not-so-healthy, recipes that help you maintain your weight loss by taking everyday foods and making them healthier without sacrificing the flavor. Jennifer has lost 30 pounds through proper nutrition education and shares her healthy lifestyle tips on her blog.
The best way to get rid of belly fat is a combination of strength training and cardio. The cardio will help burn fat from all over your body, including your belly, while the strength training will help you build more muscle, which burns more calories at rest than fat does. For weight loss, aim to fit in at least 300 minutes of cardio per week and at least two strength-training sessions.
Such an inspirational story, Jennifer! The ones in the comments section too. I see that there are so many people are still struggling in dealing with weight management. So I have something for you guys. It’s red tea. Red tea reduces stress, aids in weight management because it burns fat passively, cleanses the body, and control cravings so you’ll get rid of the unnecessary calories. If you’re interested, I recommend this one: https://bit.ly/2I1DF0N 🙂
Dairy products such as cream and cheeses. They work well in cooking as they satisfy. The problem is if you’re munching a lot of cheese in front of the TV in the evening… without being hungry. Be careful with that. Or lots of cream with dessert, when you’re actually already full and just keep eating because it tastes good. Or another common culprit: loads of heavy cream in the coffee, many times per day.

Unfortunately, despite the expertise of these highly regarded scientists, they systematically mis-calculated the energy needs of the study subjects. As a result, instead of everyone getting an accurately-dosed energy balancing diet, they were under-fed by about 300 Calories per day. Because all of the subjects got the high carb diet for the first month and the ketogenic diet for the second month, the natural effect of restricting energy intake by 10% would have been a small but significant reduction in resting energy expenditure that would have occurred progressively over the 2-month study duration. In other words, by significantly underfeeding the study subjects and always administering the ketogenic diet in the second month, the deck was stacked against the ketogenic diet. Taking this into account, the 2-4% rise in daily energy expenditure in the second month would probably have been double this amount had the study been properly designed. Whatever the true effect, these numbers are fairly small as noted above; but this is a study in which the odds were tipped in favor of the status quo through clever experimental design, and in which the conclusions were not justified by the data.

About: Britni’s been blogging for years, but only in the past couple did she start on a journey to lose weight in a unique way — by working towards getting her personal training certification (and blogging, of course!). She’s a hardcore lover of food and fitness, and she’s also dedicated to making sure other young mothers like herself are given the tools they need to shed pounds and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

About: Emma’s blogging personality is emphasized in her blog name. She’s a health and fitness junkie who uses her own life experiences to inspire others. For Emma, fitness is a release, and she wants it to be the same for her readers. Emma provides multiple recipes, weight loss tips and is an avid believer in “macro-counting,” eating the right kind of calories to maintain a healthy body weight.

I first met Roni in 2009 at the POM Harvest Blogger Tour. She's one of the "big" bloggers in the health blog community; I was really nervous to meet her in person. All my fears were put to rest the second I met Roni. She was warm, friendly, and fully committed to living the healthy and active lifestyle that she blogs about every day on Roni’s Weigh.

Visceral fat, commonly known as belly fat, is the layer of fat below the muscles of your abdomen. Due to its crucial location surrounding many of your vital organs, belly fat supplies a constant source of energy but also exposes the body to harmful toxins and hormones. When you have too many fat cells or your fat cells get too large, they can overproduce toxins that increase your risk for chronic inflammation, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. This is why belly fat can be more dangerous than subcutaneous fat—or the outer layer of fat that you can pinch with your fingers. That said, the reason you're having trouble buttoning your pants may not be visceral fat: what we're calling "belly fat" these days could be bloating or water retention rather than a fat buildup. Read on for steps you can take to beat the bulge.

The available evidence shows that moderate carb restriction is effective in treating any female hormonal problems that might be driving weight gain. In this study of women with PCOS, for example, 30% of calories from carbs worked better than 55% of calories. On the other hand, an extremely low-carb diet is not necessarily the answer either: especially for women, extreme carb restriction can cause problems of its own, including hormonal dysfunction, amenorrhea (loss of normal periods), and infertility. Sweet potatoes are not the enemy! You can eat 1-2 starchy tubers (potatoes or sweet potatoes) every day and still be well under 30% of calories from carbs.

Every time you complete 10 reps on the rowing machine, lift the handles straight up over your head—without bending your elbows—for two consecutive repetitions before returning to normal rowing form. This works your shoulders and back harder, as well as your legs, since they have to produce more power to give you the momentum to perform the move, says McGarr.
Another healthy change that will help you look better is to cut back on salt. Sodium causes your body to hold onto excess water, so eating a high-salt diet means you’re likely storing more water weight than necessary. Check to see if you have any of the seven clear signs you’re eating too much salt. If you’re in a rush to lose weight fast, cut out added salt as much as possible. That means keep ditching the salt shaker and avoiding processed and packaged foods, where added salt is pretty much inevitable.
Great question. Do you like any kind of bean – kidney, black, pinto, white, etc.? You could try adding a little spices to them to make better. I had a really hard time with them when I first started, but I now just toss them in a small frying pan with a little bit of butter and some minced garlic – I had a bit of pepper for taste and they are quite delicious this way.
Although it seems good in theory, the major issue with training in a fasted state is that the weight loss could be coming from a loss of muscle mass, which is exactly what you don't want. Training without proper nutrition makes it very difficult for your body to replenish and recover from the protein breakdown that occurs during a bout of exercise. Therefore, the body ends up sacrificing muscle mass because there are no available amino acids for muscle protein synthesis.
Well done Jennifer. Inspirational. I also know from personal experience how hard it is to lose weight. It takes discipline to push through no matter what you’re feeling. For me it was getting up at 5:00 a.m. every morning (Mon – Fri) to exercise but when I saw some photos of me while my wife and I were on holiday, that was all the motivation , that I need.. very fantastic
"Anytime you’re stressed, you probably go for food," Dr. Seltzer says. (Have we met?!) That’s because cortisol, the stress hormone, stokes your appetite for sugary, fatty foods. No wonder it’s associated with higher body weight, according to a 2007 Obesity study that quantified chronic stress exposure by looking at cortisol concentrations in more than 2,000 adults’ hair.
It is important to understand that weight is entirely a function of input and output. The input is the food you eat and the calories contained therein. The output is your energy output. To lose weight the output needs to be greater than the input. It is that simple. Do not believe any of the diet fads. If you are currently not gaining or losing weight then just burning 300 extra calories per week or eating/drinking 300 calories less per week (2 sodas for example or a small burger) WILL make you lose weight - in this case around 5 pounds of fat per year.
You know you’re in a rut when you run out of ideas and inspiration. I personally see a rut as a productivity vacuum. It might very well be a reason why you aren’t getting results. Even as you spend more time on your work, you can’t seem to get anything constructive done. While I’m normally productive, I get into occasional ruts (especially when I’ve been working back-to-back without rest). During those times, I can spend an entire day in front of the computer and get nothing done. It can be quite frustrating.
Hey, Adam… Just read your article… sounds fantastic… first of all, i weigh about 128-130 lbs 5’2… 14 years old!!!! I struggle everyday trying to control what i eat… Perhaps u could give me some advice on how to lose around 25 lbs in 4-5 weeks max; the healthy and so that i keep it off. I am always tempted by the junk food around me. Also, I’ve had problems in the past about me weight and my parents and siblings aren’t very supportive about what i eat. Please, my weight has been an obsession ever since i could imagine..
There needs to be more people like you. I know too many people that give up soon after starting their quest to weight loss. What they do not seem to understand is that their expectations are being negatively influenced by the media promoting it. What I mean is, a number of the weight loss companies always show a male or a female with shredded bodies that imply that the customer will look the same way over night. The truth is, like Tony Horton said in his original P90X, “Rome was not built in a day and neither was your body”. People need to understand that true change will take weeks, months, and even years. A few years ago, I followed the original P90X program and was able to lose 25 pounds. I felt amazing, however, soon after I stopped the program, the weight came right back. In my personal situation, I may have lost the weigh too fast. I was eating small meals, but always seemed to feel hungry. I was depriving myself of what I liked, therefore when I stopped, all of my old eating habits came back. Your new technique is great and I hope more people read you post to inspire a healthier life style, thereby, helping to minimize the U.S. obesity problem. Thank you

Cortisone as an oral drug is another common culprit (e.g. Prednisolone). Cortisone often causes weight gain in the long run, especially at higher doses (e.g. more than 5 mg Prednisolone per day). Unfortunately, cortisone is often an essential medication for those who are prescribed it, but the dose should be adjusted frequently so you don’t take more than you need. Asthma inhalers and other local cortisone treatments, like creams or nose sprays, hardly affect weight.

First, does being in nutritional ketosis necessarily cause weight loss? For individuals who have experienced fairly rapid weight loss with little effort, their answer is usually a resounding yes! But remember that this is typically based on one person’s experience (or one person and a few of his/her friends). This commonly happens in a person who is relatively insulin sensitive, so that when that individual gets to their new stable (‘maintenance’) weight, they probably did not need to remain in nutritional ketosis—i.e., they could eat a wider range of total daily carbs and still remain weight stable. So in that person’s experience, it looks like nutritional ketosis caused their weight loss and it stopped when they ate enough carbs to go out of nutritional ketosis. In scientific terms, we need to decide if this is a causal relationship, or just an association.
About: Brian’s struggles with weight are some we can all relate to — the need to get healthy, fit, you name it. But what makes his blog particularly interesting is that his studio apartment doesn’t have a kitchen. That forces Brian to get creative, and all he has to work with is a mini-refrigerator and a Big Boss Rapid Oven. His blog is a way to stay accountable and share recipes that are about as creative as you can get.

2) We humans vary greatly one from another based upon inherited characteristics such as calories per kg burned by resting muscle (Bogardus 1992), aerobic fitness (Klissorous 1971), and body fat distribution (Bouchard 1990). As postulated in our blog post, it is very possible that we humans also differ in our responses to a well-formulated ketogenic diet, where some people actually experience an increase in metabolic energy use when in nutritional ketosis. Certainly the 2016 NuSI/Hall might offer a rich pile of data to dig through to see if some of those 17 individuals appeared to have an accentuated REE or TEE during the second month of that 300 kcal/day energy restricted diet. Thus one person’s accentuated response to a ketogenic diet may not be reflected in the experience of someone else doing exactly the same thing. We frequently hear stories about this from married couples. N Engl J Med. 1990 May 24;322(21):1477-82.

I am unclear as to the meaning of the numbers on the protein chart. I have PCOS and hypothyroidism and am on meds for both. 2 weeks ago I began the Keto lifestyle and in the first 11 days lost 3.8 pounds. I’ve kept my carbs at 5% or under 25 grams, my fat at 75% , and my protein at 20%. I’m also exercising (strength and cardio) 5 times a week. I am NOT overeating, if anything sometimes I feel I’m not eating enough. I am discouraged today as I got on the scale to find a .2 of a pound weight gain in 3 days. I know this seems insignificant but to someone with my conditions to see the scale consistently going down and now go up, even a little, is awful. Any advice?

While you could lose weight and body fat by dieting alone, adding exercise will result in a better body composition after you're finished losing weight. It also appears that weight lost through exercise may be more likely to come from your belly fat than weight lost through diet alone, according to a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Christina Russell is a Celebrity Trainer, author, and the writer behind the healthy living blog, Body Rebooted. Christina lost over 60 pounds in just 5 months incorporating a gluten-free diet and fitness routine and created her blog as a place to share her gluten-free recipes along with the ins and outs of her weight loss journey. Her blog has since evolved into a full-blown healthy living website that provides resources for you to reach your goals.